The Life of Property House, Family and Inheritance in Barn, South-West France [Hardcover]

In B?arn, a region of south-west France, longstanding and resilient ideas of property and practices of inheritance control the destinies of those living in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Based on extensive fieldwork and archival research that combines ethnography and intellectual history, this study explores the long-term continuities of this particular way of life within a broad framework. These local ideas have found expression twice at the national level. First, sociological arguments about the family, proposed by Fr?d?ric Le Play, shaped debates on social reform and the repair of national identity during the last third of the nineteenth century  and these debates would subsequently influence contemporary European thought and social policy. Second, these local ideas entered into late twentieth-century sociological categories through the influential work of Pierre Bourdieu. Through these examples and others, the author illustrates the multi-layered life of these local concepts and practices and the continuing contribution of the local to modern European national history.

[The authors] insights into Bourdieus project are intriguing and original, comprising, in some respects, the makings of an anthropological biography of this influential figure& the work is a welcome addition to the literature on rural Europe, and France in particular, and demonstrates the ongoing potential of European ethnography for illuminating anthropologys unconscious dispositions and Western intellectual mannerisms. It will be of interest to historians and sociologists, no doubt, as well as anthropologists.? ??Anthropos

Jenkinss work articulates a rich theoretical framework that informs the study of regional identity and the place and motivations of rural actors in provincial modernization. It is intriguing to consider how this approach might be applied to other distinctive regions of France. Finally, this projects ethnographic lóF